Entire H-Kashmir shuts down to Protest School Blaze
Pakistan Times Kashmir Desk

SRINAGAR (India held-Kashmir): Shops and businesses remained shut Tuesday in the of entire held Kashmir as residents observed a one-day strike called to protest the gutting of the region's oldest school.

Police and paramilitary forces were deployed in strength throughout Srinagar and other parts of the Indian occupied Kashmir to prevent any "law and order" problems, a police officer said.

The 115-year-old Islamia Higher Secondary School was destroyed Monday by a pre-dawn fire which whipped through the brick-and-wood structure, witnesses said.

Cause of the Fire?

Police have yet to state the cause of the fire but held Kashmir's chief Muslim cleric, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, whose great great-uncle Moulana Rasool Shah established the school, claimed the building was deliberately torched.

He blamed the incident on "elements" who gunned down his uncle, Molvi Mushtaq Ahmed, at a mosque near the school on May 29. Ahmed died of his wounds a week later, with a lesser-known rebel group, Save Kashmir Movement, later claiming responsibility.

"I believe it is the handiwork of the same forces who eliminated Molvi Mushtaq Ahmed," Farooq told reporters Tuesday. "We know them closely and shall expose them shortly."

He said that on May 29, when Ahmed was shot, gunmen had come to the school and tied up the staff.

The Plan

"But they could not execute the plan (to burn down the school) on that day," said Ahmed, who heads the Anjuman-e-Nusrat al-Islam trust which runs more than a dozen educational institutions in Kashmir and called Tuesday's strike.

The shutdown, which was supported by the moderate faction of the region's main separatist alliance, brought business to a halt in Srinagar and also disrupted most government and private offices, witnesses said.●